Saved From The Dinner Table: Activists Rescue More Than 500 Caged Dogs Destined For RestaurantS.

Crammed into tiny cages and enduring appalling conditions, these dogs had been destined for restaurant tables in China.
But they were saved from that fate after activists intercepted the truck carrying them.
Many of the 505 creatures had barely survived their terrible ordeal, having endured cramped conditions and a lack of water during their near 1,000 mile by road. But rescue came too late for 11 dogs which had succumbed to dehydration and exposure. 
The driver, who was questioned by police, said he had been employed to take the animals from Mianning county, Xichang city in the southwest of Sichuan province,to restaurants in Yulin city in south China's Guangxi province.
Volunteers provided the dogs with water and food which they had been deprived of because of the narrow space in the truck.
The trade and transportation of animals in China has come in for criticism by campaigners in the West.

Some of the huge markets which sell dogs and cats to restaurants for slaughter and human consumption, came under international spot light several years ago after being the suspected origin of the deadly SARS virus.
It is not uncommon for dogs, as well as other animals, to be crammed so tightly together into tiny metal cages they cannot even bark - an environment ripe for the spread of disease.

In one of the large markets, on a 60 acre site in Guangzhou, China, cages of dogs and cats - some of them bred as domestic pets - are piled high and when an animal is chosen for sale it is bludgeoned with an iron bar until it is close to death before, being handed over to the purchaser.